May
General Meeting
Our speaker this month was Andy Curtis from the National Coastwatch Institution.
"Eyes along the Coast"
The NCI is a charity staffed and managed by volunteers whose job it is to help save lives at sea and around our coastline. They are part of the UK Search and Rescue, working along side the coastguard, the RNLI and other "blue light" emergency services. They don't get involved in any rescues, their job is just to watch and listen. If they become aware of an emergency, they contact the appropriate services.
Our speaker was from the Rame Head Lookout Station situated on a historic outcrop of land. It was from here that the Spanish Armada was first spotted. A beacon was lit and Sir Francis Drake was informed while playing bowls on the Hoe, so the legend goes.
Horse Drawn Barge Trip
8 members made their way to Tiverton on a rather cool day, with a forecast of rain showers.
At the entrance to the Canal Company, we were met by Dave who introduced us to the whole crew including Brinkley the horse and Tilly the dog.
Dave gave a short history of The Great Western Canal which was built between 1812 and 1814. It was designed to carry limestone from the local quarry to the lime kilns. It was always intended to be a much longer canal going all the way from Bristol to Exeter, but was never completed due to the emergence of the railways. Today just a short 11 mile section remains and its only commercial traffic is the horse drawn barge. The quarry is still in operation today, but uses lorries for its transport.
The barge travelled out of Tiverton into the countryside. As we passed along the canal we saw many Mallard Ducks and Moorhens. there were also some ducklings, but not the Canada Geese goslings or Kingfishers that are sometimes seen. The verges were lined with flowering water irises and emerging, but not yet flowering, water lilies.
On the way back, Dave suggested opening the windows and having 2 minutes of total silence so that we could appreciate the peace of the canal. It was lovely, if a little chilly.
After the barge trip we all made our way to The Globe Inn at Sampford Peverell for lunch. This pub is next to the canal we had just travelled on, but further along than we went. It was very spacious inside with a good selection of food especially the puddings (3 choices for cheesecake!).
We arrived back in Plymouth at 4:30 pm having managed to dodge all the rain showers.
April
Water Treatment Works Visit
On Tuesday 28 April 2026 a large group from the Moor's Edge u3a donned hard hats and high viz jackets to take part in a guided tour of the Mayflower water treatment works at Roborough. Luckily the sun was shining so we were able to view the huge open air tanks where water drawn from the Rivers Tavy, Tamar and Burrator reservoir were mixed before being piped into the huge adjacent treatment plant that was designed and built for South West Water by a Dutch company called PWNT at a cost of some £60 million and opened in 2020.
The plant is state of the art and utilizes world-first technology to filter all the drawn water through a truly amazing labyrinth of pipes, filters and tanks to give some 6500 local businesses and 250,000 residents the cleanest water possible. The water is treated in such a way that those with old fashioned lead piping in their homes also obtain a degree of protection from the health risks of lead dissolving into the drinking water.
South West Water have been granted water extraction licences but only in certain amounts and so, when river levels are low, as in our increasingly hot summers, water is taken from our local reservoirs. In the winter rivers can be problematic if they are flooded as the turgid water drawn off is more expensive to treat.
The plant usually treats 55 million litres of water per day, but this can be increased to a maximum of 90 million litres per day. The system can be used to provide treated water to areas outside of the Plymouth area when urgently needed.
Chemicals and huge filters are needed to treat the incoming water, but the whole system is automated and alarms are set to alert the small number of staff to any perceived malfunctions 24 hours a day seven days a week.
We all agreed this was a truly informative and inspiring visit made very enjoyable by Steve, Alan and Trish who were more than happy to answer all our questions.
We extend a big thank you to all the South West Water staff and recommend anyone to take advantage of arranging a visit to the Mayflower water treatment works. It should be remembered that the Roborough works is not set up as visitor centre and there are a great many steps with handrails encountered during the tour.
Photo by Penny Blake
Vineyard Visit
10 members visited the Tamar Valley Vineyard which is situated close to the River Tamar just beyond Bere Alston.
We were greeted by Marcus Williams and his parents who run the vineyard. The vineyard was started by Marcus' grandfather, a German POW who married a local girl. The site was was started as a market garden enterprise, but was wasn't very profitable and was largely run as a hobby. In the last couple of years the family decided to give up their full time jobs and run the site as a wine and cider producing vineyard.
As most of the vines are still quite young, only some of the wine they produce is from their own grapes.
Marcus lead us down the vineyard pointing out the various areas. first we came to the newest planting of grapes, Seyval Blanc which will produce a white sparkling wine. The next year was vintage, local apple varieties for their cider. Then another area of grapes called Rondo, a German variety especially suited to cooler climate of North Europe. It is often used to produce a Rosé which has a surprising dark colour. The final area of the vineyard is given over to Madeleine Angevine, the only vines producing a crop. This grape variety gives a crisp white wine and is a popular choice in this country.
Marcus showed how the vines are trained to give the best harvest.
We then walked back up to the vinery, with some members taking advance of a lift from Mr Williams Snr. in his car.
Marcus had 3 wines for us to try with a cheese board. The first wine was the Madeleine Angevine paired with a buffalo cheese. The second and third wines were Rondo, but made differently so that the first one was much lighter than the second one. The first Rondo was paired with Sharpham Rustic, a brie type cheese, and the second Rondo was paired with blue cheese made with ewe's milk. The crackers were Peter's Yard and very popular.
2 members purchased some wine before going home.
General Meeting
Today's speaker was Rob Holmes talking to us about Mary's Meals. Rob heard about this charity from a TV problem where a school girl complained about the quality of her school dinners, which in turn lead to her raising money for Mary's Meals. Rob was so touched by the TV programme that he contacted the charity and offered his services as a public speaker in the Devon area. He discovered that Mary's Meals didn't have any speakers in the whole of England!
The charity has no political or religious motives, nor do they involve themselves with any other social problems the countries might have. Mary's Meals has just one main aim, to give free meals to children of primary school age in countries where high levels of poverty mean children often don't attend school. The meals are provided at the school which encourages children to attend classes in return for a free meal.
The charity was started in 2002 in Scotland and now provides 3,000,000 meals, in 16 countries, every day. Most of the countries are in Africa, but also include Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
The meals are locally sourced and generally quite basic. The persons giving out the food are often the parents and other family members of the children receiving the food. This allows the charity to use 91% of its income on charity work and very little needing to be spent on overheads.
Rob doesn't take a fee for his talk, but he did bring a few collection boxes. We hope he went home with plenty of money!
March
Our speaker this month was John Burden talking about growing up in the 50s, those of us now known as Boomers. We shared our memories on food, clothing, toys and transport. We thought nothing of being out all door, only coming home for tea when it got dark. We went "scrumping" (selling fruit from other people's trees, for those not familiar with the term), climbing trees, netting frogspawn, even picking wild flowers for our mothers without any thought of possible danger. What charmed lives we lived!
February
Our speaker for the February meeting had to cancel at the very last moment. The speaker has offered to come back some time in the future.
Instead, we had a short talk from Terry, our Chairman, about getting members to join the committee. If we can't get more members on the committee our u3a is in danger of closing down. If you want Moor's Edge u3a to continue, please consider standing for the committee. You are welcome to watch a committee meeting if you want to know more about what goes on. Just turn up on the 3rd Thursday of every month at 10:30 in the Meeting Room.
Val & Ginny collected money for the various trips booked for later in the year. If you haven't paid for your trip yet, please get the money to Sue B ASAP. Please don't pay Moor's Edge u3a.
The New Year Meal
Our annual New Year was a great success. This year we visited St Elizabeth's House again. The hotel has changed owners since we visited last year, so we were a little wary on how it would compare.
The food was excellent and the atmosphere relaxed. Everyone seems to have enjoyed their meals.
Many thanks to Sue H for making all the arrangements.
January
Our January speaker was one of our regulars, Christopher Turner who is the Plymouth Lifeboat Station Education Speaker.
Plymouth got its first lifeboat several years before the Lifeboat Institute came into being. In those early days the lifeboat would be named after the person who had paid for the boat. Christopher had managed to get photos of every single lifeboat that Plymouth has ever had, quite an achievement. Some of his photos are reproduced below, but they are photos of photos, so please forgive the picture quality.
The lifeboat station has been based at Millbay Docks for most of its existence, with a short period when it was at the Barbican. e currently have 2 lifeboats in Plymouth. one is a large vessel capable of taking on all sea and weather conditions. The other lifeboat is the an inshore boat, smaller and lighter, so able to get into the many rivers, creeks and bays around our coastline.The lifeboat service gets approximately 180 call outs each year.
December
Our December meeting was our usual Christmas party. The Singing for Fun group sang a selection of Christmas songs finishing up with The Twelve Days of Christmas. Audience participation was compulsory!
This was followed by a quiz which had many of us scratching our heads. Terry had chosen questions about Plymouth and even lifelong Plymothians were stumped by some of them. The raffle was very popular, although a few prizes were left over. We will save them for next time except for the 2006 Diary. That will be offered at the January meeting on a "first come" basis.
Finally we tucked into mince pies and clotted cream, had a last chat with our friends and tottered home.
Happy Christmas to all our members and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year.